The Hungarian cellist Tibor de Machula (1912-82) spent the second half
of his life in Amsterdam where he was the distinguished principal of
the Concertgebouw orchestra. He had earlier studied in America with
the outstanding British cellist and teacher Felix Salmond, and in 1936
had been appointed Furtwängler’s principal cello in the Berlin
Philharmonic, a position he forsook for that in the Concertgebouw in
1947.

Here in this two-disc compilation we find solo recordings made in the
1950s. At this time the Concertgebouw’s principals were not encouraged
to make records with the orchestra, so generally had to forage further
afield. In de Machula’s case that meant, in the first two concertos,
Vienna. Here, with the local symphony and Bernhard Paumgartner, in November
1955, he set down two concertos. There is an elegant and warmly toned
performance of the Boccherini/Grützmacher confection which sports
an extremely well poised and textured slow movement. The Haydn sounds
a little stately in its first movement but is at all times graced by
the soloist’s rich tonal contribution, always alive, always consummately
alert to rhythm and tonal colour and breadth. The cadenzas are those
of the soloist’s eminent predecessor and compatriot, David Popper.

For the Lalo Concerto he was taped in his own concert hall, the Grote
Zaal of the Concertgebouw, so at least this was a known acoustic environment
for him. True to tradition, however, the orchestra was the Residentie
Orkest directed by Willem van Otterloo. This January 1952 recording
is vivid to the point of fierceness but it catches de Machula’s
tonal qualities very precisely. He plays with considerable dash and
vitality, as one would expect of a man for whom the concerto repertoire
was hardly alien, as he made a series of concerto recordings including
the Dvořák and the Brahms Double, in which his collaboration
with the Concertgebouw’s principal violinists Hermann Krebbers
and Theo Olof were much admired fixtures of the calendar. It’s
a shame that this recording was rather bypassed in favour of Zara Nelsova’s
almost contemporaneous recording of the work with Adrian Boult for Decca.
To finish we have a dignified, expressive Bruch Kol Nidrei and
a touching but unsentimental Träumerei in de Machula’s
own arrangement for cello and orchestra.

The restorations are unproblematic with no ticks or pops; no notes either.
This set encapsulates de Machula’s art very sympathetically.